Nokia Bell Labs has announced a new development in small cell technology that will allow deployment without requiring the power and backhaul wires needed for existing installations
The vendor's new F-Cell technology will allow massive capacity deployment on demand without requiring pre-planning or civil works.
Bell Labs has completed a trial of drone-based delivery of an F-Cell to a Nokia office rooftop. The F-Cell wirelessly self-powered, self-configured, auto-connected to the network and instantly began streaming high-definition video.
F-Cell architecture comprises a closed-loop, 64-antenna massive MIMO system used to form eight beams to eight solar powered F-Cells. They are designed so that the solar panel is no larger than the cell itself for maximum efficiency.
The technology supports non-line-of-sight FTT or TDD wireless networking through the parallel operation of eight individual 20-MHz channels, allowing for a system throughput rate of around 1 Gbps over existing LTE networks.
“F-Cell is a key breakthrough in massively scalable and massively deployable technology that will allow networks to deliver seemingly infinite capacity, imperceptible latency and connectivity to trillions of things," Bell Labs president and Nokia CTO Marcus Weldon said.
“Nokia Bell Labs is again excited to re-invent the future and help drive what we believe will be a technological revolution, underpinned by the creation of a new digital network fabric that will transform human existence.”